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Since the dawn of human time people have described certain places as
being holy or magical, as having a concentrated power or presence of
spirit. Ancient legends, historical records and contemporary reports tell
of extraordinary, even miraculous happenings at these places - the sick
are healed, deities appear, artists receive inspiration, prophets see
visions and sages attain spiritual enlightenment. It is a curious fact,
however, that these sacred sites, so significant to human culture are so
little known beyond their own religious traditions. Of enormous
importance, they have received only limited attention from social
anthropologists, cultural geographers and religious historians. Why this
remarkable omission of awareness and understanding?

The story of the sacred sites, and certainly its finer analysis, is a
journey through mythic realms and a witnessing of things that can be felt
but not measured. Such matters, beyond the limits of possibility agreed
upon by the establishment scientific community, are marginalized and
conveniently disregarded. Additionally, a truly comprehensive study of the
holy places inevitably introduces the student to deeper levels of their
own being, territories sometimes frightening for overly rational minds.
Yet the holy places and their mysterious spiritual magnetism call us to a
deep exploration for they contain a knowledge of vital importance to the
well being of humanity and the planet we live upon.

In this short article I will share some of the understandings I have
gleaned from twenty years of intensively studying the world’s pilgrimage
traditions and sacred places. The vantage point I bring to these
investigations is three-fold: I examine the sacred sites as an
anthropologist, visit them as a pilgrim, and photograph them as an artist.
This multi-mode, objective/subjective approach, practiced at more than 600
holy places in 80 countries, has allowed me to penetrate to the core
mysteries of one of the worlds most compelling enigmas.

Why do human beings make pilgrimages to sacred sites? How do we account
for the historical fact - evident in nearly every culture and era - that
sacred places have been and continue to be the most visited places on the
planet? Two answers sometimes suggested are the momentum of religious
tradition (an old condition) and modern day tourism (a recent effect).

The reasons for visits by contemporary tourists are easy to understand
but give little insight into the enigma of the sacred sites or their power
of attraction on human beings. Tourists find themselves at the holy
places, not usually because of any spiritual interest on their part or
that of the managers of their tour agencies, but rather because so many of
the great pilgrimage shrines are repositories of monumental architecture
and beautiful art. Being the sort of photogenic places that look enticing
in tourist brochures and travel guide books, many sacred sites quite
naturally draw large numbers of recreational tourists.

By contrast, pilgrims journeying to sacred sites for religious reasons
are a far more revealing focus of study. There are several questions we
can ask of these pilgrims. What is the root cause of their pilgrimage
tradition? What is the original generator of the spiritual magnetism of
their holy sites? What do the earliest myths and legends of their sacred
sites reveal? Seeking answers to these questions we discover that there
are several distinct categories of founding legends associated with the
sacred sites.

The examples are fascinating:

Certain places were recognized by shamans and sages as manifesting or
radiating a feeling of power, a sense of energy, a mysterious numinosity.

Spirits, elementals and angels were seen to appear and consecrate
specific geographical sites.

Pilgrims reported miracles of healing and extraordinary answers to
prayers.

Among the rich collection of foundation myths there are several common
denominators, a crucial one being that nearly all the myths indicate that
something extraordinary was seen or experienced by human beings. Various
social anthropologists and cultural geographers, such as Turner, Bhardwaj,
Nolan and Morinis have done valuable work in cataloguing the variety of
founding legends but have usually terminated their studies at that level.
Seldom have the behavioral scientists looked more deeply into the myths
and symbols of the holy places, to inquire into the nature of the
extraordinary phenomena that gave rise to the founding legends.

This is a key insight into the unstudied condition of this great global
phenomena: the specific myths that could help solve the riddle of the
sacred sites remain unexamined because they are dismissed as being just
stories, as being nothing more than simplistic and fantastic imaginations
of preliterate and/or non-rational minds. How wrong this notion is!

The
founding myths of the sacred sites are actually descriptive metaphors
revealing to the insightful student the character, quality or power of
particular places. The arcane legends passed to us from archaic times are
siren calls to our minds and souls, calling us to a new science and a
transformation of human consciousness.

The really important question then - the unasked one - is how do we
explain these extraordinary reports about the sacred sites? What unknown
power could be causing the astonishing phenomena reported at pilgrimage
places all over the world? Are they really miracles or are they simply
unexplored realities? St. Augustine once said that miracles do not happen
in contradiction to nature but only in contradiction to what we currently
know of nature. Here lies the problem: we have not yet looked deep enough
to comprehend the nature of the holy places.

That penetrating inquiry has been the passion of my life. Based on
twenty years studying and visiting the sacred sites, I suggest that there
is a definite field of energy that surrounds and saturates the immediate
locality of certain pilgrimage places. Concentrated at particular holy
sites is a subtle, multidimensional field of influence extending in space
and continuing in time. How then may we explain the origin and continuing
vitality of these site-specific energy fields? How is a power place a
power place? What invigorates their undeniable spiritual magnetism? Thus
far I have recognized twenty different factors that may contribute to the
localized energy fields at the sacred sites. In the detailed writings on
my web site, www.sacredsites.com,
I classify and analyze those twenty
factors according to the following four categories:

The influences of the Earth.

The influences of celestial objects.

The influences of the structures and artifacts at the sacred sites.

The influences of the accumulated concentration of a charged field
of psychic power deriving from the focused intention, prayers and
meditations of millions of pilgrims over long periods of time.

In the category of the influences of the Earth, there are the
geophysical characteristics of the sacred sites, including localized
magnetism, gravitational anomalies, geothermal activity, the presence of
underground water, ionization, ultrasound and radioactivity. Paul Devereux
and the Dragon Project, having conducted more than two decades of
exhaustive studies of the geophysical anomalies at sacred sites, present
striking evidence that ancient people recognized the powers of specific
sites and utilized them for a variety of therapeutic, spiritual, shamanic
and oracular purposes. How archaic humans discovered these power places
was by an intimate exposure to the feel of the land and its subtle
energies. With this sense they felt those particular places on the living
earth that expressed a more highly charged vitality. These pagan ritual
sites became the locations of the first shrines and temples. Over hundreds
or thousands of years and the process of continuing construction at the
sites, these places became the most visited and venerated sites on the
planet: the great pilgrimage centers of Jerusalem, Compostela, Lourdes,
Guadalupe, Bodh Gaya, Banaras and Mecca.

The second category of factors contributing to the power of place
regards the influence of celestial objects on the local energy fields of
the sacred sites. For reasons only little understood, certain power places
demonstrate regular periods of increase in their emanations of geophysical
energies that seemingly correspond to cyclical movements of the sun, moon,
planets and stars. Many ancient peoples were concerned with the movements
of the heavenly sphere and this evidence is particularly abundant at the
oldest holy places. Over the ages of people living at or near certain
power places, it was observed that there were cycles of increase and
decrease in the power of place and that those periods were linked to the
movements of specific celestial bodies. These periods of energetic
increase, for example the solstices, equinoxes and various lunar dates,
became the first festival times of prehistoric peoples (I am speaking here
of regularly occurring events as opposed to irregular celebrations of the
hunt). These festivals were earth-spirit ceremonies that actually predate
agriculture (and correspondingly predate the less ancient agricultural
myths that would later be associated with the earth-spirit festival
dates).

The young science of archaeoastronomy (astronomy itself being vastly
older) has brought to light remarkable evidence that a large proportion of
the pilgrimage sites of deep antiquity are topographically situated to be
in precise alignment relative to the position and movements of particular
astronomical objects visible from each site. The most ancient science of
our species, only recently being rediscovered, was the interweaving of
terrestrial astrology and sacred geography. There is a great galactic
symphony of subtle forces playing upon our planet by virtue of the
cyclical orbits and particular positions of numerous different celestial
bodies relative to the earth. The power places, because of their profound
energetic resonance with different celestial frequencies, are ideal
portals where humans may access those forces. The times most suited to
interdimensional access at these holy places are the particular dates
encoded in each of their founding myths.

The third category of factors contributing to the power of the sacred
sites concerns the design, construction and ornamentation of the
structures that humans have placed at the sacred sites. A particularly
fascinating example is the Sacred Geometry used in the construction of the
pyramids, temples, mosques and cathedrals at the sacred sites. Sacred
Geometry is the formulating geometry evident in many facets of the natural
world, such as sea shells, crystal structure and musical intervals.
Numerous early cultures, observant of the mathematically repeating
patterns of nature, sought to encode those same patterns and proportions
in the architecture they created at the sacred sites. Similar to how the
mathematically precise shapes of musical instruments create and enable
specific sounds, the purposeful shapes of some (not all) sacred structures
assist in the generation of specific fields of energy and influence.
Contributing to and amplifying these fields of influence, shrine builders
also made use of sound, light, aromatic substances, jewel-encrusted icons
and gold/silver-plated sculpture. The German philosopher, Goethe, once
remarked that sacred architecture is frozen music; this is a palpable
reality for many visitors to the great pilgrimage shrines.

The fourth factor contributing to the power of the sacred sites is the
most mysterious, the least understood. This is the accumulated and
concentrated power of human intention. As photographic film (a small piece
of earth) can record the energy of light, and as audio tape (another small
piece of earth) can record the energy of sound, so also can a sacred site
(a larger piece of earth) record, remember or somehow contain the energy
and intention of the millions of humans who have performed ceremony at the
holy place. Within the shrines and sanctuaries, countless priests,
priestesses and pilgrims have gathered for hundreds or thousands of years.
Dancing and chanting, praying and meditating, they have continuously
charged and amplified the etheric fields of love and peace, healing and
wisdom. The megalithic stone rings, Celtic healing springs, Taoist sacred
mountains, Mayan temples, Gothic cathedrals, Shiite Islamic ziyarats,
Hindu Jyotir Lingas, Buddhist stupas and Egyptian pyramids are
repositories of the concentrated spiritual aspirations and attainments of
all humanity. Here, too, are the places where Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed,
Zoroaster, Guru Nanak, Mahavira and other sages and shamans awakened to
the deepest realizations of spiritual wisdom.

The vast numbers of pilgrims visiting the sacred sites, both
historically and in contemporary times, are not conceptually familiar with the
different factors contributing to the power of the sites. They are not
visiting for such reasons. They come because it is the momentum of their
religious tradition that draws people to the holy places. Buddhists go to
the four major places of Buddha’s life; Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Saranath and
Kushinagar. Hindus visit sites sacred to gods and goddesses such as Shiva,
Vishnu, Krishna, Saraswati, Shakti and Kali. Christians visit Lourdes,
Rome, Jerusalem, Compostela and a host of sites associated with saints and
the apparitions of angels. Taoists climb the sacred mountains of China;
Muslims visit Mecca, Medina and the shrines of the Shi’te Imans; and Jews
go to the Western Wall and the shrines of great Rabbis.

Given my long fascination and familiarity with the power places, you
might ask what is my philosophy regarding them? I believe it is highly
beneficial for people to make pilgrimages to the sacred sites because of
the transformational powers available at the sites. These legendary places
have the mysterious capacity to awaken and catalyze within visitors the
qualities of compassion, wisdom, peace of mind and respect for the Earth.
The development of these qualities in more members of the human species is
of crucial importance, considering the numerous ecological and social
problems occurring in the world. At the root of all these problems may be
found human ignorance. Human beings are out of touch with themselves (both
their bodies and deeper states of spiritual consciousness), their fellow
beings, and the Earth they live upon. The sacred sites and their subtle
fields of influence can assist in the awakening and transformation of
human consciousness and thereby in the healing of the Earth.

In closing, let me say a few words regarding what I have learned about
how to approach and benefit from the sacred sites. The experience of a
sacred place actually begins well before a pilgrim arrives at the site.
First of all, choose an area of the world whose power places you would
like to explore. Next, consult the categorized bibliography on my web site
which will give you the names of books (and other web sites) concerning
sacred sites in the region of your interest. In the weeks or months prior
to your journey, perhaps later in the evening when you are near dream
state, read about the places you will soon visit and begin to journey to
them in your imagination.

When you finally reach the immediate area or city of the pilgrimage
place make the conscious mental effort to approach the shrine with the
focused intention that you are going to plug into the power of place as
you would plug an electrical appliance into a wall socket. This metaphor
is very helpful to embody; it actually predisposes you to a more intense
connection with the sacred sites. Then go to the site with a free and open
mind. Maybe you will wander around first and then meditate or maybe it
will be the other way around. Maybe you will take a nap or pray or play.
There are no rules. Simply let the spirit of the place and your own being
come into relationship and then let go to however that flows. If you want
to learn a really effective way of plugging into the sacred sites and
their energies, try the easy meditation technique shown on my web site.

The energy transference at the power places goes both ways; earth to
human and human to earth. The wondrously magical living earth gives us
tiny human beings subtle infusions of high octane soul food and as
pilgrims we give the earth a sort of planetary acupuncture in return.
True, the power places were mostly discovered in old times but they are
still vital today, still charged and emanating a potent field of
transformational energy. Open yourself to this power. Let it touch you and
teach you while the planet is in turn graced by your own love.

Selected Bibliography

Sacred Earth is written and photographed by Martin Gray
and is the culmination of twenty-five years of travel to
hundreds of sacred sites in more than one hundred countries.

NEW:Sacred Life, Coins of the Natural World
features black and white photographs of 360 different coins
from 130 countries. The coins were photographed with close-up
lenses and the photographs are printed so that each coin is
shown three inches in diameter. The magnification of the coins
allows the beauty of their images to be clearly seen. The
coins were minted in the 19th and 20th centuries. On the coins
are shown images of animals, plants, birds, aquatics, reptiles
and insects. The theme of the book is that we have living
beings shown on our money, let’s use that money to protect
life.

About the Author

Martin Gray is an anthropologist and photographer
specializing in the study of sacred sites, holy places and
pilgrimage traditions. During a twenty-five year period he
traveled extensively in more than one hundred and twenty-five
countries to study and photograph many hundreds of sacred places
of prehistoric, historic and contemporary cultures. Martin is an
expert in the subjects of ancient religion, sacred geography,
archaeoastronomy and ecopsychology. In 1997, Martin placed the web
site Places of Peace and Power at SacredSites.com on the Internet
and since that time more than thirty-five million people have
visited the site. In 2004 National Geographic published The
Geography of Religion of which Martin was the principal
photographer. In 2007, Sterling, an imprint of Barnes & Noble,
published Sacred Earth, a large format book of his color
photographs of sacred sites in 80 countries. In 2009, Sacred Earth
was published in Japan and Russia. Martin’s photographs and
writings have been featured internationally in documentaries,
newspapers, magazines, books and web sites, and he has presented
slide shows at museums, conferences and universities for more than
125,000 people.

SACRED SITES: PLACES OF
PEACE AND POWERThis web site discusses Martin's pilgrimage journeys, features
many of his photographs and writings, lists calendar details of
upcoming slide shows, gives information regarding book and
photograph orders, and has links to related sites.

Places of Peace and Power

Since ancient times, sacred sites have had a mysterious allure
for billions of people around the world. Legends and contemporary
reports tell of extraordinary experiences people have had while
visiting these places. Different sacred sites have the power to heal
the body, enlighten the mind and inspire the heart. What is the key
to the mystery of the sacred sites and how are we to explain their
power?

Anthropologist Martin Gray has spent thirty years studying and
photographing hundreds of sacred sites in more than one hundred and
twenty-five countries. On this web site Martin discusses the
mythology and history of sacred sites and presents a fascinating
explanation of the miraculous phenomena that occur at them.

Martin’s photographs have been featured by National Geographic
and UNESCO, and in newspapers, magazines, books, documentaries and
galleries around the world.

Sacred sites, religious pluralism and tolerance

In these times of worsening religious extremism it would be of
great benefit for us all to realize that at their core each of the
different religions are saying the same thing. They are proclaiming
that God is one, and that all things, all people are born from that
oneness. In God there are no differences, no separations. Only
oneness, sameness. Equality. Irrespective of the creed - Christian,
Jew, Moslem, Buddhist, Hindu - all people praise and pray to the
same indivisible divinity. We must realize this. We all love and are
loved by the same God. If we recognize this, and affirm it with our
actions, we will be an immeasurable force for religious tolerance in
the world. The sacred sites, the pilgrimage places illustrated here
are where people most passionately give praise and prayer to God. Go
there, be present in that divinity, be in love with that love.

Sacred Sites Book Now Available!

Barnes & Noble has published a large-format book of Martin’s
photographs called Sacred Earth.

Martin Gray Stock Photography: You
can purchase over 700 photographs from Martin Gray's portfolio from
National Geographic Image Collection. Visit the
National Geographic Image Collection and search on "Martin Gray"

Contact Martin Gray

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Contacting Martin Directly

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correspondence. If you have questions, suggestions or information
regarding sacred sites that I do not know about, please write to me
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